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Following the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, which ended in 1988, Iraq was in debt, partly to neighboring Kuwait. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein decided to launch an invasion of the tiny but oil-rich country for “control of Kuwait’s oil and wealth, the military advantage of frontage on the Persian Gulf, Pan-Arabism under Iraqi leadership, and a way to generate popular support in the wake of its defeat in the Iran-Iraq War,” explains Encyclopedia Britannica

The Iraqis bombed the sheik’s Dasman Palace on the banks of the Persian Gulf and stormed into the city with helicopters and tanks, taking control of the international airport and the central bank. Sheik Faud al–Ahmad al–Sabah, the younger brother of Kuwaiti leader Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Sabah, who had fled to Saudi Arabia, was killed.

Thousands of foreigners were forbidden to leave Iraq or Kuwait for several days after the invasion. A British Airways flight from London to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was scheduled to stop at Kuwait International Airport to refuel the morning of Aug. 2. All 367 passengers on board Flight 149 were taken hostage by the Iraqi army to be used as “human shields” alongside other Westerners.

When last-ditch efforts proved unsuccessful, the U.S.-led allied forces launched an air attack into Baghdad in the early hours of Jan. 17. A massive offensive on land began on Feb. 24, dramatically reducing Iraqi resistance. After just 100 hours a ceasefire was declared, thus ending the war.

Iraqi troops were forced from Kuwait, but the coalition stopped short of removing Hussein from power.

Former CNN correspondent Peter Arnett described the situation as one he had “never before experienced.” Bernard Shaw, an ex-CNN anchor, said: “In war, one moment you’re alive, the next moment you’re dead, and I made my peace with the fact that at any moment I could die.”